The heiress of Greenhurst

by Ann S. Stephens

His mother looked at him with a half sneer.

“Do you know that this creature and her miserable old father have been plotting to disgrace our name, to steal away your birthright, George?”

“I only know that we are in the presence of death,” answered the young man, solemnly. “Madam, let me lead you away, this agitation will make you ill.”

“No—not while these vipers remain,” she answered.

This scene had, from the first, wounded me as if every word had been a blow; but my heart received as a blessing every fresh pang, for it seemed as if by pain I could make atonement for all I had inflicted on the dead. But I could now no longer endure it. Without a word, and with one mournful glance at the beautiful marble that had been my father, I went forth alone. Turner resisted; not all the malice of that bad woman could move him from the side of that death couch—command and insult were alike futile. Until the day of the funeral the old man remained by his master, still as a shadow, faithful as truth.

It was a miserable time with me after this. I wandered around that dwelling like a haunting and haunted spirit. They had laid my father out in state, and the meanest villager could pass in and look upon him; but I, his only child, driven away like a dog, could only look upon the walls that held him afar off, and through blinding tears. Still I said to myself it is right. Let me have patience with this cruelty—I who would not be merciful, who refused forgiveness, as if I were a god to judge and avenge, should learn to suffer. With the memory of his death green in my heart, I thought that the bitterness of my nature was all gone, and gloried like a martyr in the persecutions that threatened me.

At last I grew weary with watching. Maria strove to comfort me, but her own kind heart was full of grief, and we could only weep together and wish for old Turner.

But we had friends who did not quite forsake us, though it was known that even sympathy in our sorrow would be held as a cause of offence with Lady Catherine, who was now a peeress in her own right, and lady of Greenhurst.

The curate and my precious Cora came to us at once. They had seen Turner at his post, and knowing the danger, came without concealment to comfort us. Cora did not seem well. Her sweet mouth was unsteady, as if with more than sudden grief. Those pale blue shadows lay beneath her beautiful eyes, that I could never see without a feeling that an overflow of tears had left them there.

She was very gentle, and affectionate as a child, striving with her pretty ways and sweet words to win me from the sternness of my grief. I felt this gratefully, but had no power to express the sense that I really felt of her kindness. As one answers and feels the pity of a child, I received the sympathy that she came to give. Would that it had been otherwise, would that I had treated her as a woman full of rich, shy, womanly feelings; in that time of confidence and tears she might have been won to trust in me entirely. But there was the old feeling of suspicion in my heart. We shared our tears together, but nothing else. The sweet, motherless girl had no encouragement to open her heart, even if it had been her wish. In the selfishness of my grief I forgot everything else.